Real life doesn't work like social media. This is confirmed by "Social Media Meets The Real World" - the brilliant human study on film by Anthony Wolch. In the social world, marketing is a lot less pugnacious or irrelevant. "I love seeing my friends and what they're liking" says my Mom. To her and hundreds of millions of others, it feels a lot more familiar, friendly and welcoming even though you know its marketing and someone somewhere is trying to get you to buy.

"Yes advertising is changing - it's no longer for brands that can afford it, now it's for ordinary Joe soap thanks to Facebook, says Nicola Conneally, an Advertising Executive on Mad Ave.

And yet social is not enough on its own. Even with the newly redesigned Facebook Feed which has photos representing about 75% of its content. Brands are still built today by being built on ideas on the rise in culture, maximized in all sorts of media. Ok, ok, you've heard it before...social is less intrusive and more meaningful, involved and interactive. Take for instance the “promote” feature that is now available to Facebook users worldwide, which provides everyday users with the option to pay to promote a photo, status, or other post for around $7 a pop. You can now sponsor your Dad, your dog...certain products, thoughts and ideas in order to have them show up higher in an audience’s news-feed, which Facebook’s help center says increases its views by a designated audience. Users have control over who can see the sponsored posts, and have the ability to see how many people have seen or interacted with their ad as a sponsored and unsponsored post.

Effectively, your friends can now pay to sponsor and promote that embarrassing picture of you, the one they took last Saturday when you were passed out in the living room. Great. Or, you and your friends can participate in something that is democratizing the world of advertising and marketing. The Facebook “promote” feature could potentially change the way that advertising reaches its audience, by creating the space for everyday individuals to promote the products and ideas that they feel is worthy of attention, rather than having the advertising forced upon them.

Cultural movements are only created when they are important to a culture, when they speak in a meaningful way to those they are targeted towards. Cultural Movements today spread like wildfire. Facebook’s newest feature makes this easy by increasing participation within and between markets. So, you can choose to promote your favorite brand, that new clothing line that you can’t get enough of, a product that has revolutionized your life. Or you can sponsor the drunken picture of your best friend (or best “frenemy”). Your choice.